8.23.2011

A few weeks ago I returned from Bangladesh to Seoul. The trip can only be described as powerful. But to fully understand that, I must explain the months leading up to it.

In late January, Elysabeth and myself walked into New Philadelphia Church. We had previously visited four other English speaking churches in Seoul but this day played out differently than the previous services. After a few praise songs and the offering basket being passed around, the pastor strolled to the pulpit, picked up the mic and picked Liz out of the crowd. He kindly asked her if she would be willing to come to the front and receive some prayer, saying, "the Lord just highlighted you for some reason." So she did.

What happened next changed my life. Pastor Christian began speak to into Liz's life and praying for things that only I knew she had been dealing with. He mentioned things that rested at the base of her heart, things that she had only revealed to me. The prayers were accurate beyond reason.

Liz returned to the seat next to me with wet cheeks and puffy eyes. She looked up at my befuddled face and we exchanged a 'that-was-nuts' chuckle. I sat through the sermon that day without hearing a word. Only two things rapidly ran through my mind. "What just happened?" and "Was that actually God speaking through the pastor?"

Now, before you start analyzing that question for yourself or wondering if I've gone looney, understand that I had pretty much dsmissed God in my life prior to that moment. Sure, I had some belief in God, but at the end of my day, my overtly rational approach to life had me spend the previous five years coming to the simple conclusion that God was not relevant. Not in my life at least.

But in that moment, in that sanctuary, I went through a very intense shedding of personal beliefs and found myself coming to only one conclusion. Yes. That was totally real.

Over the next four months we fell in love with the people at the church and ended up really growing as people in our daily lives and in our relationship. So much so that I turned down a trip to Bali with Liz because I felt so strongly that I should be on one of the summer missions teams. And of course, Liz lovingly expressed that she was cool with it.

Thus bringing me to the title of this blog post. On August 1st, I flew to Bangladesh with a team of 13 amazing people. What unfolded on that trip will stay with me for the rest of my life.

I am not one to write endlessly long pieces on this blog, so I will stick with this--Over those seven days we ministered to over 3,000 people and saw 1,000 of them come to Christ in a country that is 90% Muslim. In the midst of the monsoon season we never saw a drop of rain. And in within the group we represented four different countries and ranged from 23 to 35-years-old but did not record a single argument, fight or even slight disagreement but may have recorded the most laughs ever on any missions trip. It was incredible.

{The trip's Pastor, Myunghwa, enjoying some time with kids.}

{In every village the women were the first to really dive into the message and receive it wholeheartedly. The women are pretty oppressed culturally and to see our female pastor speaking with such authority really captured their hearts.}

{Me, telling the locals a very similar story to what you just read above.}

{Everyday we traveled from village to village on the back of these half motorcycle-half mini-trucks for 5 hours total. After all was said and done we had covered almost the entire southern section of the country. The beauty of the land was overwhelming.}

{Our three meals a day consisted of rice, veggies and some version of curry on either chicken, fish or goat. That's right, goat. It was good but I can't say I'm chomping at the bit to bring the recipe back home.}

{Some of the team looking good after that fresh goat action. Troopers....Notice the group of locals that slipped in the back to watch us. They were so confused when they saw our diverse group that they just stared.}

{Wildly cute kids at every stop.}

{This picture really captures the essence of Bangladesh.}

{That' our boy Innamul driving the cycle/truck like a pro. Roy, the smiler, picked up quite a bit of Bangali on the trip and obviously just caught a joke by big Innamul. Judging my Innamul's face, he's got a dry delivery that hits the spot.}

{So beautiful.}

{Like I mentioned before, it was the middle of the rainy season and much of the farm land was flooded but for our time there we saw only good weather.}

Here is the link to the facebook page with tons of photos from the trip. Take a peek.